


the kingdom for a cup of (gluten free) flour

by singerofsimplesongs



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Chronic Illness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, i worked out some Feelings in this one, simon snow has celiac disease, that kind of fairy tale love where your significant other fights people about cross contamination, this author has celiac disease
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:02:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24614224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singerofsimplesongs/pseuds/singerofsimplesongs
Summary: “Sour cherry scones are always worth the headache they give me when I eat them,” I declare proudly, confidently.Penny, Baz, and Shepard all stare at me with blank looks on their faces, and I realize I’ve said something wrong.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 32
Kudos: 181





	the kingdom for a cup of (gluten free) flour

**SIMON**

“Sour cherry scones are always worth the headache they give me when I eat them,” I declare proudly, confidently. 

Penny, Baz, and Shepard all stare at me with blank looks on their faces, and I realize I’ve said something wrong. 

“You mean that doesn’t-” I pause, “-happen to you guys?” 

The flat is quiet. I look over at Baz, who’s scanning my face, his mouth a grim line. Penny’s eyes are bouncing from me, to my stomach, to my head, to the scone I have in my hand. Shepard looks concerned, but the zest for a new mystery glints behind his eyes (I think Penny notices the look on Shepard’s face because she smacks him in the arm). 

Baz pulls the scone out of my hand very slowly, very gently. Like he’s trying not to spook me. 

“How long have scones given you a headache, Simon?” 

His fingers fit themselves in between mine now that the scone is gone. 

I pause. Think. 

“Are scones not supposed to give you headaches then?” I wonder out loud. 

Baz shakes his head. 

“No, love,” he sighs. “Definitely not.” 

One look at Penny tells me she’s already planning an attack. 

“Don’t worry Simon,” she says. “We’ll figure it out.” 

Shepard is buried in his mobile, keys clicking as he starts google-ing away. Probably searching his forums to see if anyone knows anything about dragons and headaches. 

~~~

Baz and I are lying in bed together later, his back pressed into my chest, my arms lazily around his waist (he’s taller but he insists on being the little spoon, the tosser). He asks about the headaches again. Asks when they started. Asks if I’ve noticed anything else like that. 

I shrug. 

Baz huffs a bitter laugh. 

“Simon Snow, love of my ridiculous life, you know Bunce and I will just bother you about this relentlessly if you don’t tell me.” He sounds teasing, but I know he wants me to tell him. 

I kiss the back of his neck and think. It hurts to think about this. About how I’ve always been tired. Always been hungry. How quickly I lose weight. How my head always hurts. I just thought this was all a normal part of living in care homes. Of being the Chosen One. Of being me. 

Baz snuggling further into me breaks me out of my thoughts. For a posh git, he really does love to cuddle. 

“Simon” he says as he wiggles his arse just a little (he sure knows how to regain my attention). “What else?” 

I shrug. 

“I’m tired, I ‘spose. Feel like I’ve always been tired.”

Baz nods. 

“My head hurts a lot after I eat, but I already mentioned that.” 

Baz nods again. And then, well, it all comes flooding out.

“My legs hurt sometimes. And my hands. Everything hurts I guess, but not all the time. I get sores in my mouth a lot, but I got a lot more when I was living in the homes-“

At the mention of the homes, Baz stiffens. 

“-sometimes, if I stand up too fast, my vision goes kinda spotty. My stomach hurts, but I thought I was just eating too much. I think I get heartburn-“

Baz rolls over and cuts me off with a small kiss at the corner of my mouth. 

“I'm calling Dr. Wellbelove in the morning” he says. “None of this should be happening to you.”

**BAZ**

Hearing Simon rattle these things off like they were a normal way to live makes me want to resurrect the Mage and kill him again. He kept Simon in his charge all those years and didn’t realize he wasn’t well. He sent him back to the care homes that made him unwell. Maybe I’ll make a pilgrimage one of these days just to personally spit on his (unmarked) grave. 

Simon is asleep now, a small pinch just between his brows. I run my finger over the tense muscles in an attempt to smooth them out. He'll get a vicious wrinkle there someday if he’s not careful, but it isn’t like he can help the stressing in his dreams (and I’ll still love him when he’s wrinkly). I could spell him, but Simon doesn’t like waking up with the feeling of my magic in the back of his mouth. He says if I’m going to spell him he’d rather be awake for it. 

Maybe these symptoms all have to do with his dragon parts. But part of me wonders if there’s something much more sinister at work here. Crowley I don’t know what I’ll do with myself if Wellbelove tells us this is something serious and life threatening. Burn the world to the ground, I suppose.

Fuck the Mage. 

How he could look at Simon for any length of time and think of him as little more than a pawn is beyond me. Simon Snow is an incredible creature. Anyone or anything that thinks otherwise deserves exactly what the Mage got.

Over the next few days I start to notice more on my own now that I’m looking. The way Simon uses his wings or his tail to brace himself against the wall when he stands too fast. The way he subtly stretches his hands and feet because they’re sore. He looks vaguely ill after eating sometimes. I don’t know how I didn’t see it before. Especially since I’m obsessed with drinking in every little bit of him. 

“I think you might have a gluten intolerance Simon,” Dr. Wellbelove says in a cold white room a few weeks later. “I’m sending you to a Normal doctor. They’ll sort this out.” 

Simon’s face falls, that little wrinkle forming between his brows again. I practically have to physically sit on my hand to keep from smoothing it out here in front of Dr Wellbelove. I cannot have the common people knowing I’m so soft for this man. I do have a reputation to uphold. 

As Dr. Wellbelove explains, Simon’s face falls. And falls. And falls. 

It falls, and it doesn’t perk back up. 

**SIMON**

The first doctor we go to is a moron. He keeps telling me I have irritable bowel, but when Baz asks what we’re going to do about it, the man doesn’t have an answer. He doesn’t want to run any tests or try any medication. Baz sits in the chair watching the whole exam, arms crossed, eyebrow raised, silently fuming. 

When we’re back in the car with more questions than answers, Baz is soft with me, but he hits the breaks just a little too hard, and takes turns just a little too rough. He’s definitely angry. I hardly feel anything. Life’s already hit me with so much, what’s one more thing, right?

He and Penny argue about it that night, which eventually just devolves into them hating the Mage. Shepard and I spend most of the evening on the couch watching telly, while Baz and Penny are huddled over their laptops typing and whispering furiously. 

The next day, Baz informs me that he found a private clinic with a good reputation that will take a look over my records. He also, incredibly, spoke to his parents and they agreed to help fund anything we need that the NHS doesn’t want to foot the bill for. It all feels like too much. 

~~~

Baz skips his Wednesday classes to come with me to the appointment. I need someone here today, even if it’s just to make sure the Normals don’t pick up on the fact that I’m part dragon. I don’t understand why Dr. Wellbelove couldn’t do any of this himself, but he said he wasn’t specialized enough. Apparently being a Magickal doctor doesn’t mean you know everything. If your body decides it’s gotta attack itself, Mages can’t fix that. 

We stop at the lab first. Baz holds my hand as I get blood drawn. I expect him to at least flinch a little but he just raises an eyebrow at me when I stare at him too long. I feel myself drawing on his magic to try to stabilize my wings and tail. I think the thing I missed most about magic was not being able to share it with Baz. Now that I can again, now that we’ve practiced and figured most of it out, Baz’s magic feels like a balm when my heart is aching. Even if he is just silently keeping my dragon parts hidden. 

As the laboratory technician is putting all my blood into vials (really don’t understand how Baz is not reacting to this), Baz leans over and kisses the spot between my eyebrows. 

“Can’t have you getting too many wrinkles and marring your beautiful face, Snow,” he murmurs. “You’ve already got all these moles”. He kisses the one above my eye, and I feel his small smile against my forehead. 

Baz isn’t usually one for public affection, we both aren’t, but he must sense that I’m terribly nervous. He’s been much more physically affectionate than usual. I wonder if he reckons I might be dying and he’s just buttering me up for the bad news. 

Merlin, what if I can’t have _butter_ anymore?? Then I really would be dying. 

I’ve started making a list in my head of all the foods I’ll miss if I can’t eat gluten anymore. Dr. Wellbelove explained that gluten is usually considered wheat, barley, and rye, but some people can cross react to things like oats, and corn. If it is coeliac disease, then it means my body has been attacking my small intestine this whole time because of the gluten, and sometimes that comes with lactose intolerance. 

So realistically, butter could be part of the problem. Which makes my chest ache every time I think about it. 

Baz and I are already planning a farewell tour for all the foods in London I might not be able to eat anymore. I can’t decide yet if that makes me feel sad.

**BAZ**

It’s a cold day in January when Simon’s mobile rings. Very grey. Very rainy. Absolutely dreadful. 

Simon sees it’s the doctor calling and quickly switches the call to speaker. I grab Simon's hand. Penny and Shepard are hovering in the kitchen. 

“You have coeliac, son,” the doctor says. “You’ll need to avoid gluten from now on.” He mumbles a few pleasantries and then the line goes dead. Something in Simon’s eyes goes dead too. 

“That seemed...sort of anticlimactic? Don’t we think?” 

I glare at Shepard over Simon's head. 

“I just mean, I figured we’d get more instructions than that. Celiac can do a lot of damage. Shouldn’t he get more tests?”

Penny starts pulling him toward the door. 

“I’ll call Dr. Wellbelove,” she says. “See what he thinks, yeah?” 

Simon is looking despondently down at the blank screen on his mobile. Penny and I exchange meaningful looks over his head. We’ve gotten very good about having silent conversations about Simon Snow while he’s in the room. Her look to me means _take care of him Basil, tell him it’ll be alright_. My look to her means _I’ll do my best Bunce now get that ridiculous American out of here._

I feel. Well I don’t really know what I feel. It’s not a death sentence, but it’s certainly not something we can just shake off. This is going to change Simon’s whole life. Our whole life. 

Penny and Shepard have done their research and have already come to this conclusion, of-fucking-course. Penny has already been linking me to articles about how to be a supportive partner for someone with coeliac disease since Simon and I got back from the doctor. 

I know what this means, what a setback this will be. Simon was just starting to pull out of his shell and tell me things again. If Simon has to be so careful around food? Around baked goods? Crowley I hope he doesn’t end up curled on the couch again. I should email his therapist. He did give me permission to do that if I’m worried. 

Food has always been such a comfort to Simon, and now it’s just another thing that can hurt him. Has been hurting him. And for how long? His whole life? Since he got to Watford? Since he lost his magic? Simon made it seem like he thought all this was normal so it must have been going on since he was young.

Fuck the Mage, honestly. He should have realized. 

I should have realized. 

As he tucks into my side, trying very hard to hide his tears from me (and failing), I scroll through my mobile, and purchase all the gluten free cookbooks I had stashed in my cart. I place a soft kiss into Simon's curls, and wrap myself around him. 

We’ll be okay love. I’ll make bloody sure of it. 

~~~

I go to work immediately cleaning the flat. I call Daphne and ask her to convince my father to expand my allowance this month. I don’t care if he takes it out of next month’s, I explain, but I’m determined to replace every damned thing in this kitchen. Daphne says she’ll talk to him, and then says next time she goes shopping she’ll get some Simon-safe things for the manor as long as I send her a list. Which makes me unbearably soft in a way I can’t explain. 

Bunce packs up all the flour and baking mixes and anything that could have crossed paths with gluten even once and takes it down to the food bank. We all agree the flat is now a completely gluten free zone so as to let Simon heal. Simon just gives us a small smile when we show him all our work and goes to lay on the couch. 

Everything inside me sinks like a lead balloon. I watch him curl around himself. He’s got on a gigantic hoodie that he tucks his wings up into. I’m terrified he’s going to get lost in himself again. 

I start work on our room next. I know he stashes snacks in his nightstand and there are plenty of crumbs in the carpet. I could clean with magic, but feel like I want to personally find each and every molecule and destroy it myself. 

The cookbooks come. I leave them on the table. I bookmark a recipe for scones. Simon doesn’t get off the couch. 

**SIMON**

I thought since I had warning for this, I’d feel okay. Like I said, I’ve already been through so much, really, this isn’t the worst thing that’s happened to me. 

But it hits me in waves. 

One day it’s okay. 

The next day, I see a victoria sponge in a bake shop window and I want to start wailing in the middle of the street. I can’t make it through an episode of Bake Off without wanting to lock myself in my room and cry. 

I should have expected it, but it doesn't seem fair. 

Baz has been cleaning the flat with a vengeance. Like every speck of dust he finds has personally attacked his whole family. 

I mention this to Penny when Shepard and Baz are out buying new cooking things (and I honestly don’t understand how that got decided, but I think Baz legitimately likes Shep. Baz and Pen would probably just argue over everything for hours). After they left, Penny took one look at me, sighed, and wiggled herself onto the couch so my head was in her lap. 

“Simon”, she eventually says. “Basil’s mad at himself about this.” 

I whip my head up to look at her. 

“What?! Why?”

“He thinks he should have realized a long time ago that you were suffering.” 

I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose, something I’m fairly certain I’ve picked up from Baz. 

“Well I mean I’ve been reading about all this,” I say, “and there’s a lot of symptoms of coeliac disease. Sometimes it can take a bit for people to put the pieces together. How could Baz have possibly known?” 

Penny looks down at me in surprise. 

“Don’t look at me like that Pen. I have a mobile. I know how to use google.” 

“No Simon, it’s not that. We all know you’re very clever. I think we’ve just been worried this was going to be a huge step back for you. Like a Before America step back.” 

I shake my head. 

“It’s not. Yes, this is frustrating. And sad. Penny it’s really, really sad. I already miss scones.”

She rolls her eyes, but she’s got a smile on her face. 

“I’ve already texted my therapist and she gave me this whole thing about grief and what to expect when you’re grieving the way you used to do things. But right now I just need some space to be sad.” 

Penny nods. 

“I think you should talk to Basil about this, Simon. Let him know what’s going through your head, yeah?” she says. 

“Okay. Yeah. I’ll talk to him.” 

Penny pulls the blankets down from the back of the couch and we cozy up together on the couch watching reruns of Doctor Who. We’re asleep long before Baz and Shepard come back with our new things. 

**BAZ**

It’s been almost a week since our deep clean, when I come home to find Simon weeping on the kitchen floor. He’s leaned up against the cabinet and his head is between his knees. One of his old cookbooks is open on the counter and there’s some abandoned shopping bags in the entryway. 

I immediately drop my book bag and move to sit beside him. I throw an arm around his shoulder and pull him into me so he can cry into my shirt. Simon can ruin all the shirts I have, I don’t mind. 

We sit together for a long time, the quiet interrupted by Simon’s heaving sighs and (quite frankly extremely loud) sniffles. 

After more time goes by between sniffles and sighs, I break the silence. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Simon shrugs and stays quiet. I don’t want to push him so I don’t say anything more. 

Finally after several more silent minutes, he speaks. 

“I wanted to make something for you. For your birthday.”

I squeeze his shoulder. 

“My birthday’s not for two weeks, Snow. And anyway why would that make you so upset?”

He shrugs again. I give him space to come up with an answer. I’ve learned that Simon’s shrugs aren’t necessarily his final answer, he’s often buying time to come up with the right words. 

“You’re going to think it’s silly,” he finally says. 

“I most certainly am not.” 

I feel him smile. Just a little. 

“I wanted to start trying. Experimenting you know? So I could make you something good on your birthday.”

“So in the middle of your newest crisis, you decided to think only of me and my ridiculous sweet tooth? How altruistic of you, Simon.” 

He snorts into my shoulder and sniffles. 

“I just wanted to prove I could do it, I think. Prove that I could still bake something. But then I was at Tesco and I had to check all the ingredients like you and Penny told me and it was just. Too much. Way too much.”

He sighs. 

“And I know you basically threw out the entire kitchen and replaced everything.

I snort in protest. We did not throw it all out. We donated it, I’m not a complete monster. 

“But I didn’t want to need someone to hold my hand while I get groceries. I thought I could do it on my own.”

“I told you I’d-“ 

“I know what you told me Baz,” he snaps. “Like I said. I wanted to do it on my own.”

I nod. Encourage him to continue. Try not to feel hurt by his tone because I know he’s grieving. 

“But then this bat-shit lady was so in love with some bread she was buying and she told me to smell it and that I should get some of my own because oh it just smells sooo good. And then I just started crying. In the middle of Tesco. Like a complete wanker.” 

I laugh. I don’t mean to laugh, but I do. Picturing Simon blubbering over bread is a little too easy. It is a very Simon thing to do. He shoves me for laughing at him and soon we’re both giggling all over each other on the kitchen floor. 

Simon still has unshed tears in his eyes when I pull us both off the floor and (slowly, as not to spook him) try to kiss him senseless, but I think he’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay. 

**SIMON**

Months go by. Baz accompanies me to Tesco as much as he can (probably to make sure I don’t start weeping over bread again, but he’s kind enough not to say). Most of our shopping trips consist of us holding hands while we double check all the products going into our baskets. Baz even checks all the shampoos and toothpaste for me. 

I tell him that’s silly, it’s not like I’m eating shampoo. 

“Of course not,” he says. “But I actually do like it when you run your fingers through my hair and I’d rather you don’t accidentally poison yourself while we’re in the middle of things, Snow.” 

Which leaves me blushing in the toiletries aisle while he just smirks at me. 

Baz is fucking _ruthless_ if ever we go out to eat. He’s got an app that tells him where the safest restaurants are, but that doesn’t stop him from interrogating waitstaff on my behalf. I think he’s even made someone cry. 

I called him out on that, said he didn’t need to be so mean about it. He just snorted and said, “yes, well, the sooner these people realize that the gluten in their kitchens is just as dangerous to you as salmonella is to the rest of us, the sooner I’ll stop snapping at them.” 

Salmonella isn’t even dangerous to him, but I don’t mention that. 

Penny thinks it’s delightful, and joins in on the questioning when we go out with her and Shepard. 

It gets easier. I don’t like being the one to ask about these things, I don’t really want to be a bother. It helps having friends that are willing to make people cry if they don’t have the safest practices (even if that is a little excessive). There was a waiter though that said if I truly had coeliac disease, I shouldn’t even be eating at restaurants at all. Which is ableist. So he might have deserved it. I’ll eat wherever I want, thank you. 

Honestly, I don’t think it would be that hard to make restaurants safer for people with coeliac disease. There are so many places that offer gluten free items, but then say it’s not safe for people with coeliac or allergies because of cross contamination. People do manage to avoid poisoning their restaurant patrons with raw meat, why is this any different? 

Baz makes sure his teeth are brushed after every meal so he can kiss me freely. I told him he shouldn’t worry about that, to which he responded, “as much as I wanted to poison you when we were teenagers, I don’t actually want to poison you now,” and continued brushing his teeth. 

He’s also very much bemoaned the whole blood drinking thing because “we don’t know the cross contamination practices of butchers and squirrels, Simon” even though he doesn’t even eat squirrels anymore. He’s just being dramatic. 

He absolutely refuses to bite me which really would just solve the whole cross-contamination problem. Says we have to make sure my labs have stabilized before he starts taking anything from me again. I’ve tried to coax him into having just a small bite, but he stands firm. Which is. Well it’s disappointing, isn't it?

Its quite irritating that not being able to eat gluten is legitimately impacting my sex life. And that doesn’t even cover the fact that we have to check all our lube for gluten by-products, just in case we get a little too caught up in the moment. 

I haven’t tried baking again yet. It still seems like too much and I’m not entirely sure where to start. 

I wake up the morning of my birthday to a card on the side table. Baz seems to be asleep, but when I reach for the red envelope, I spot him peeking at me with one eye open. 

“Open it,” he says softly. 

It’s light. It feels delicate. It feels like something important. 

I slowly open the envelope to find….a recipe. 

For sour cherry scones. 

Made with gluten free flour. 

I look over at Baz, and he smiles.

“I called Cook Prichard right after you got diagnosed. She’s been fussing with it for months. I thought we might make them together today.” 

I set the recipe back down and quickly swing my leg over Baz’s hip, practically tackling him with kisses. He’s too bloody perfect. He’s too bloody kind. 

We’re both smiling into each other’s mouths. 

“Not sure if that’s a yes, Simon”

Yes Baz. I’ll make scones with you any day. 

It’s the first time in six months I truly think this is going to be okay. Even though I’ve watched him snap at people for me, even though he brushes his teeth four times a day, even though he’s been so kind and gentle with me. Today, here, right now, is the first time this doesn’t seem so hard. 

Penny and Shepard stumble out of their room a few hours later to find Baz and me covered in flour, giggling on the kitchen floor, eating sour cherry scones. 

**Author's Note:**

> To learn more about celiac disease, click [here](https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/what-is-celiac-disease).
> 
> I've seen a couple fics in various fandoms that talk about celiac, but they don't do it quite right. I got diagnosed in 2018 and despite being a nurse, I was blindsided by how much my life changed with a celiac diagnosis. I did have to deep clean my apartment, I did have to replace a lot of kitchen utensils, and I may or may not have cried in Safeway over a loaf of french bread. I think celiac disease is often perceived as one of the more of the more "easy" autoimmune diseases because you just have to stop eating gluten. In reality it's a lifetime of constant vigilance since gluten can hide on surface and kitchen utensils. Most of my family and friends all have a stash of special cutting boards, utensils, and pots and pans so that I can eat safely when I visit. The big things to take away from this is that its hard to get a diagnosis despite having an easy way of screening, there's a lot of grief that comes with a diagnosis like this, and that celiac is really hard. Your body decided to attack your small intestine if you eat gluten and does damage that takes years to heal. Even a speck of gluten is a setback. I personally get more ill when I'm glutened the farther out I get from my diagnosis. The longer my body goes without seeing it, the more violent reaction I have when there's an accident. 
> 
> The app Baz uses is real and is called Find Me Gluten Free. It's my lifeline when trying to find a place to eat with friends or if I need to get a quick bite when traveling.
> 
> Also, it is spelled celiac in the US but coeliac across the pond. That's not a typo.
> 
> ~~~~~
> 
> **"Cook Pritchard's" Gluten Free Sour Cherry Scone Recipe**  
>  (aka mine that I adapted from America's Test Kitchen's currant scone recipe)  
> Servings: 6
> 
> 7.5 oz gluten free flour blend  
> 3 tablespoons sugar  
> 1 tablespoon baking powder  
> 1/4 teaspoon salt  
> 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum  
> 6 tablespoons salted butter cut into ½ inch pieces and chilled  
> 1/3 cup dried sour cherries, chopped  
> 2/3 cup sour cream  
> 1 large egg  
> Raw cane sugar and sea salt for sprinkling (optional) 
> 
>   
> Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position, Line rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper, and place it in a second baking sheet. This will help keep the bottoms from burning. Lay large sheet of parchment paper flat on the counter and spray with vegetable oil spray.
> 
> Pulse flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and xanthan gum in food processor until combined, about five pulses. Add butter and pulse until fully incorporated and mixture resembles a fine crumble. Transfer mixture into large bowl, and fold in cherries. 
> 
> In separate bowl, whisk together sour cream and egg until combined. Using spatula, stir sour cream mixture into flour mixture until no dry bits of flour remain. 
> 
> Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rest for 30 minutes, but no longer than 30 minutes. While dough is resting, preheat oven to 500 degrees. 
> 
> Using wet hands, transfer dough to parchment on counter. Clean and wet hands again. Pat dough into six-inch round about 1 inch thick. Spray knife with oil pray and cut round into six equal pieces. Shape into rounds. Arrange scones on prepared baking sheet and sprinkle raw cane sugar on tops of scones. 
> 
> Reduce oven temperature to 425 degrees and bake scones until golden brown. 12 to 14 minutes, rotating sheet halfway through baking. 
> 
> **Dairy Free Variation:**  
>  *You can substitute with Tofutti Better Than Sour Cream. For butter, substitute with Earth Balance Vegan buttery sticks, but increase sugar to ¼ cup.


End file.
